Gordon Brown had been on the verge of calling an election in 2007 before
changing his mind at the last moment, the man who once ran the Labour Party
has claimed in a scathing portrait of the Prime Minister.

Peter Watt was forced to quit following claims that illegal donations had been made to the party by proxyPhoto: JOHN RIFKIN

By Rebecca Lefort

11:29PM GMT 09 Jan 2010

Former Labour General Secretary Peter Watt claimed the party had a fleet of limousines circling Parliament Square ready to take ministers on the campaign trail, and had millions of leaflets ready to be posted, but just as the news was due to be announced the Prime Minister made a U-turn live on television.

Mr Watt wrote in his memoirs, Inside Out: My Story Of Betrayal And Cowardice At The Heart Of New Labour: “As he spoke, the fleet of limousines ordered at Number 10’s behest was circling Parliament Square.

“They had come...to collect Ministers and whisk them off on the campaign trail. They were sent away on a pretext, to spare us the humiliation of anyone spotting them lined up outside our offices.

“We had already spent £1.2 million. Somewhere in a mail depot were hundreds of sacks of personalised letters to voters in marginal seats – 1.5 million envelopes waiting to go.”

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Mr Watt claims International Aid Minister Douglas Alexander, a close ally of Mr Brown, told him one reason for wanting an early poll: “The truth is, Peter, we have spent ten years working with this guy, and we don’t actually like him.

“We have always thought the longer the British public had to get to know him, the less they would like him as well.”

Mr Watt said Mr Alexander used those words, or “very similar”, and added: “The sentiment was repeated many times [by] senior Labour figures.”

Mr Watt resigned in 2007 following the “Donorgate” scandal when it emerged that tycoon David Abrahams had secretly given £600,000 to Labour in other people’s names, in breach of electoral laws. He claims he was unfairly blamed by Number 10 and Mr Brown. A police investigation was launched but no charges were brought.

Now Mr Watt has gained his revenge by claiming Mr Brown is not fit to be Prime Minister and is unable to govern effectively. “Downing Street was a shambles. There was no vision, no strategy, no co-ordination,” he wrote in the book, which is serialised in the Mail on Sunday.

“It was completely dysfunctional. Gordon had been so desperate to become Prime Minister that we all assumed he knew what he was going to do when he got there.

“I imagined there was some grand plan, tucked away in a drawer. But if any such document existed, nobody seemed to know about it. Gordon was simply making it up as he went along.”

Mr Watt’s allegations come just four days after an unsuccessful leadership coup against Mr Brown led by ex-Ministers Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon.

He is the first general secretary to write his memoirs, as the most senior officials in all main parties customarily observe a strict and permanent code of silence about controversial events during their term of office.

Mr Watt also highlights Mr Brown’s “weird” behaviour, recalling a moment the Prime Minister threw a tantrum at a dinner party for American Democrat politicians after guests sat down without his permission.

Mr Watt said: “For the rest of the meal he was monosyllabic, sulking because he had lost control of the seating plan.

“The plates had not even been cleared when quite suddenly, without saying anything, he just got up and left.”